fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4470 ]

OP

(Okay, now I'm regretting not giving more detail. I thought the gender/sexuality stuff shouldn't matter but...of course it does, because it leaves out a lot of context. I'm an idiot.)

She's a woman, with a husband. I am also a woman, with a girlfriend. She (meaning coworker) has also shared with me that she always feels like she's trying to do what everyone expects of her (in the course of being friends, in relation to other stuff, not this situation specifically) so I feel like that definitely complicates things.

It's not that I can't think of what to do, I'm just sure which option is right. I always thought if you're with someone and you find yourself having feelings for someone else, and you both feel the same way, you leave your partners and get together, instead of having an affair. It sort of seems like people are saying having feelings for someone else is automatically wrong, though, which feels unfair because it's not exactly something you can control. The only thing that's making me hesitate in this situation is the fact that there are kids involved, plus her family's fairly religious and although they really like me as her friend I'm not sure how they would react if she were to leave her husband for me.

These comments have made me realize that I probably need to leave my girlfriend, though. Part of me has wanted to for awhile but there was never anything really wrong with the relationship, so I didn't feel like I could really justify it.

Why does gender matter? I'm gay too, idgaf.

If you're married and respect the person you're married to, you either try to recommit to the person you married, because you made them a promise. Or, if you think the other person is worth leaving for, you admit the truth and decide it's worth ending the marriage and end it, because you can no longer keep the promises you made.

What you do not do is pretend like you're keeping the promises while you don't.

Which she's doing right now.

OP

I don't know. At first I thought it didn't matter, that's why I didn't go into the gender stuff initially, then I started thinking, well, maybe it does matter, because it's got to be harder for her to come to terms with having feelings for a woman when she's with a man, and leaving her husband because of that, than if she wanted to leave him for another man. Or maybe it doesn't. I feel like I don't even know anymore.

It has to be hard to recommit to your husband if you actually like women, but I can also see how it might be hard for her to actually leave her husband when she's afraid of disappointing people by not being who they think she should be. (It was completely different for me, my family's not religious, and although I dated guys in the past, I wasn't in a relationship when I realized "wait, I actually like girls" and I've been out ever since. It hasn't been an issue for me, but my situation is different than hers, and I'm a different sort of person than she is. I don't want to judge her too harshly when I haven't been in her situation, and I don't want to think of her as a bad person because I don't feel like she is one.)

But yeah. Like I mentioned below, I guess the ideal situation would've been for her to realize all this and decide she was going to leave her husband first, instead of telling me and then staying with him and not wanting to make up her mind about what to do. I mean, if she'd said she had feelings for me, and then decided that she couldn't leave him, and told me, hey, I can't actually leave him after all, then that would've hurt me, but at least I would know, and move on. As things are, I feel stuck in limbo. Which, I guess objectively is pretty shitty of her to do but I just can't be angry at her. Which probably makes me an idiot.

different anon here

I think it's a difficult situation for her and she could use some supportive friends if she's really going through a tough time dealing with this

BUT

you can not be that friend. you're too close to the situation and it involves you.

The situation sounds complicated and unfortunate and I don't think anyone was intentionally being an asshole in it. But it's what you've got to work with.

You having feelings for her and not doing anything about them: that's your fault. But you've mentioned you're going to take steps about it and that's going in the right direction.

Her having feelings for you and telling you about them: that's not your fault. It's also not your responsibility to be her lesbian life coach or support her through her divorce or non-divorce because she got attracted to you and told you about it. That's not fair. She's got to work through her own shit then get back to you if she wants to. It sounds like right now she doesn't even know what she wants, which means you can't help her get to it even if you wanted to. You rightly feel stuck in limbo because you are. The person who has to decide what she wants is her, then you decide whether you find that acceptable or not.

How long are you willing to wait?

OP

That's part of what sucks so much. I don't feel like either of us is a bad person, and although everyone in this thread is opening my eyes to the fact that she hasn't exactly handled things in the best way, I honestly don't believe it was her intention to hurt anyone.

Yeah, I'm coming to the conclusion that the best thing to do at this point is to end things with my girlfriend because regardless of where things do or don't go with my coworker, I'm not happy in my current relationship and it's not fair to my girlfriend. Then if my coworker decides to leave her husband, maybe we can see what happens then, but for now I probably need to keep my distance.

Honestly, I don't know. :(

lmao come off it OP

Facts first:
1. Having feelings for another person while you are in a relationship is not necessarily indicative of cheating.
2. However, it can be.
3. There is absofuckinglutely a right way to behave in this situation that is respectful of both your relationship and your colleague's marriage.
4. You probably don't want to take 'the right way' or call her bad you because that would also be admitting YOU’RE bad as well by cheating on your SO.

So the first issue we have: when is having feelings ‘cheating’ and when is it ‘not’?

In order to tackle this, we have to first define cheating. How would you define it, OP? I’d see it as ‘when you take an action that you know your partner did not agree to you taking, and then deliberately and wilfully conceal it from them’. It doesn’t matter if they’re happier this way, you went behind their back and are doing things without them knowing.

Therefore, having feelings for someone else while also being in a relationship is NOT cheating if:
- The other partner knows you might and has okayed it, why not? These things happen
- The other partner doesn’t care either way and thinks it’s cool
- The other partner has no idea, it’s never come up before, and you’re going to let them know ASAP so they can have input on it and decide what to do from here

Guess what OP, your situation doesn’t fall into any of these.

Unless you’ve discussed with your partner ‘hey what happens if we have feelings for someone else’ and they’re like, ‘cool, have fun having those feelings, I don’t really care to know either way’ — then that’s fine, and that’s not cheating. But have you? It sure as hell doesn’t sound like it.

Moving on now to issue two: what is ‘the right way to act’ about this situation that respects both relationships?

In order to tackle this, we have to first define what it means to ‘respect a relationship’. Now this is where things start getting iffy.

Some people see it as ‘ensuring the relationship continues on at all costs, even if that means lying, cheating on, betraying or hiding things from the other person in it’. This would be respecting the continuance of the relationship above how people in the relationship might actually feel if they’d know the truth. If you feel like this, OP, then congrats! Don’t do anything, you’re good.

If on the other hand you see respecting a relationship as ‘both partners being open, honest and vulnerable with each other, because a relationship is basically about working together and also respecting the right your partner has to know things and make up their own mind about stuff’ (which is closer to how I view it, personally), then respecting a relationship means to let your partner know and then make a decision on where to go from there, together. It doesn’t mean unilaterally deciding you know better for them.

Here’s an example: Someone is trans and knows it’d be a dealbreaker to their partner if their partner found out. If they defined ‘continuing the relationship and keeping their partner happy’ as the priority, then they’d hide it and sit on it forever and never reveal it. If they saw ‘including and involving their partner as an equal in this’ then they’d reveal it, let the relationship end in a way that respects the honest intentions both people had in entering into it in the first place.

OP

This comment kind of made me angry at first, but thank you.

I agree with you that the second definition (being open and honest) is more what I want in a relationship. And you're right that I'm wrong in this sitatuion too (and I think I said that elsewhere in this thread), the only difference is she actually said it, and I didn't.

But regardless of what happens with my coworker, I think I need to end things with my girlfriend. It's not fair to her for me to stay with her when I know I have feelings for someone else.

IMO, gender matters a little bit. But only in the sense that... is this the first time your co-worker has found herself experiencing these feelings for another woman? Because if so, things got a little more complicated because she's navigating that epiphany + a marriage that isn't working out like she hoped.

Having feelings for someone else isn't automatically wrong. It IS something to be wary of, when you and that person are already in relationships AND you work together.

OP

She hasn't explicitly told me, but I get that feeling it is, given her personality and the way her family is. I feel like she might not have even admitted it to herself if she has. I do know that she's only ever had two other relationships before her husband, and they were both with guys.

It does make me want to go a little easier on her, because like I said in another comment, it was entirely different for me. My family isn't religious and realizing I liked girls wasn't a big deal for me, so I don't know what she's going through and I don't feel right judging her. I mean, I could easily see her just marrying a man and having kids because she felt like she was supposed to and not really thinking there was any other option. I feel like it has to be scary for her to think of letting go of all of that. I do realize now that she should've figured all of that out before telling me she has feelings for her, but I just can't think of her as a bad person.

OP

Er, that should say "before telling me she has feelings for me"

I'm not saying this to be mean, but... you're already going plenty easy on her. You haven't been harsh with her or about her at all.

My caveat with this is that it's a huge life change for her, and that muddies the waters. It doesn't mean her feelings for you are invalid, just that they're a lot messier than they would be if she'd already traveled that road to the realization that she's not straight. It's like catching someone on the rebound, times a hundred... and there's a reason why most people advise NOT catching someone on the rebound, you know what I mean?

Like the rebound situation, there's a lot she needs to figure out for herself and she cannot do that while simultaneously diving headfirst into another relationship. She needs to get her own house in order first, and you won't be doing her any favors by adding a romantic entanglement to the list of things she has to get sorted out.

OP

I know that. I'm sure my feelings are clouding things, but I just can't think of her as a bad person. While everyone here is making me realizing that the way she's acted in this whole situation isn't right, I truly don't think she ever intended to hurt anyone.

Yeah. I definitely think things are a bit trickier than they would be if she was married to a woman right now, or at least had been in relationships with women in the past.

You're right. I think I need to take a step back right now, and let her figure things out first. Maybe somewhere down the lines maybe things could work, but I realize I also need to accept that they might not ever. And someone else asked how long I'm willing to wait, and that's something I need to figure out because I honestly don't know at this point.

I don't think anyone is saying she's Hitler, but the sad truth is that even people you love can behave in ways that are rather self-interested, oblivious to other peoples' feelings. And one of the best covers for that behavior is "love". Confessing her crush to her co-worker instead of working out her feelings in therapy and/or marriage counseling was self-interested. She doesn't have to do the work of untangling what's going on with her, for starters.

Dumping it in your lap instead can easily be mistaken for romantic - that's how our culture sees confessions of love, after all! It's a Grand Romantic Gesture, the stuff of movies... like crashing someone's wedding and blaring a love ballad to show them how much you love them. It involves you in her problems. And it opens up the tantalizing possibility that even though she hasn't done the work of figuring out what she wants and either sticking with her husband or extricating herself from an unhappy marriage, maybe you will do it for her by initiating a physical affair as well as the emotional one you're already having.

The question isn't just how long are you willing to wait, but how much are you willing to sacrifice for this? You've decided fairly quickly that you're not happy in your own relationship, but that's still a sacrifice. You've expressed the concern about your job, which was a hard earned position in a challenging field. Have you considered the possibility that one of you might have to quit? Or that your employer and colleagues might have issues with seeing two co-workers leave their partners and hook up? Even if you didn't technically cheat, it's going to look seriously dodgy from an outsider's POV. You could both be potentially working in a more hostile environment, and that's a big thing to consider.

Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck. I think stepping way back is a good idea. If your co-worker is the right one for you, she'll still be the right one for you months or even a year down the line. Time is a good indicator of whether or not your feelings (and hers!) are love, or a passing infatuation.

OP

At work now, I have a few minutes before a meeting, so I wanted to reply.

Thank you. I appreciate you (and everyone else here) giving me a bit of a reality check in this whole situation. She definitely has a lot of things to figure out before there's even the possibility of anything between us.

And yeah, I can see how it would seem kind of sudden in the comments, but I haven't been happy in my relationship for awhile now. Everyone's replies here kind of was a wake up call to get me to admit it if that makes sense.

But job-wise, yeah, I'm not sure how that's going to work. We have other people who have met their SOs/spouses here, so it wouldn't be a problem from that aspect, but none of them were married or in relationships with other people when they got together, so it's a bit of a different situation. I think that's something we're just going to have to deal with if/when it happens.

Anyway, thanks again for the comment. She's not coming into work until this afternoon but I'm hoping to be able to find a few minutes in between other stuff to talk to her and tell her she needs to figure out things with her husband/herself first.

Oh, when I said you went quickly to deciding you weren't happy in your relationship, I don't mean that your decision was quick, I mean your realization was quick. It was fairly clear to most commenters here that your relationship must not be in top form if you're thinking about leaving. You began this thread by saying that it was a serious relationship probably heading towards marriage. It usually takes people a lot more than a few comments to wake up to the truth that actually no, they don't want to be on the relationship path they're on. I think it's a good thing, but it's a big life change for you, too.

You know your work environment better than we do. If there's already a precedent of people meeting and getting into relationships there, then that might help. But I suspect that if you want this to work (and it's kind of sounding like you do) and you want a clean transition where neither of your jobs are damaged, a clean break is absolutely necessary for your co-worker before you guys get together. You won't be able to avoid all the gossip about cheating, and it'll be partially true because there's clearly an emotional affair here. But it'll help to keep gossip to a minimum if you're both professional and detached now, while she's figuring out whether or not she really wants to leave her marriage.

To that extent, you may not be able to help her through this much even on a friendship level. That might be hard. I'm hoping your co-worker has good friends outside of work she can lean on during this time.

OP

Ah. Yeah, you're right. It was the kind of thing where I just assumed marriage would come next because we've been together awhile and that's the next step, and that's not a great reason to get married. And I don't know what it was, but after several people in a row were saying the same thing, it was like something just hit me, I don't know how to explain it.

Yeah. There was one couple who, now that I think about it was basically the same as our situation (one in a relationship, one married with kids) but both relationships had been over for quite awhile before they got together. There were rumors at first that there was an affair but they always swore there wasn't, and people eventually got over it. So, yeah, I think it would be okay, but if things ever do go anywhere we'd both need to be single for awhile first.

I know she has a good friend who's a gay guy who had a similar upbringing so I'm hoping he can help her out. I agree that I probably can't help her, and it's probably not a good idea even if I could since I'm too close to the situation.

It sort of seems like people are saying having feelings for someone else is automatically wrong, though, which feels unfair because it's not exactly something you can control.

It's not automatically wrong. But feelings are feelings. They're only an existential crisis if you choose to make them into one, in spite of what all the soap operas and romcoms have to say about it.

[ SECRET POST #4470 ]

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new anon lol

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